


The Ones Who Had Loved Her The Most

by MercyKiller5



Category: Dettlaff van der Eretein - Fandom, Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Witcher 3 Blood and Wine DLC
Genre: Blood and Wine (The Witcher 3 DLC), F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:41:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22683379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercyKiller5/pseuds/MercyKiller5
Summary: Just some add on from my 9 chapter story. Not necessary to the original storyline, just extra's that came to me that wouldn't have fit.
Relationships: Dettlaff van der Eretein/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 18





	1. The Fire of 1433

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote three of these right as I was editing up the final chapters but didn't want to extend it to add them. Just a little extra stuff that takes place AFTER the story.

Jenny and Dettlaff spent ten years together drinking wine and making love under the Toussaint skies. Ten years of glorious love and laughter. They would lay in bed for days, reading books to each other, making love, or simply just holding each other for hours, watching the world move outside their window. Jenny had spent ninety years alone and waiting for Dettlaff to return and wanted to spend twice as many with him in peace. 

Time did not pass for them, but it passed for the rest of the world, and so they left Toussaint to avoid suspicion. They traveled on foot together, far and wide. Dettlaff led her deep into the wilds of the world. They swam in crystal clear water, ate fruits ripe from the trees, watched eagles sore through the sky while laying on mountainsides. Jenny and Dettlaff removed themselves from civilization entirely. For many years, the only face Jenny saw was Dettlaff's, and she was happy. They explored ruins so old and far removed that no one had stepped foot in them since they were abandoned. They climbed mountains no one had named yet.

As time went on, Jenny became less human. The cold touched her less; she could walk barefoot through a winter storm and felt as warm as a spring day. Hunger rarely bothered Jenny, and she could go weeks without eating. As her age grew, so did her powers to the point of her being able to compel lesser Vampires.  
Dettlaff again surrounded himself with a tribe of his cousins, and together he and Jenny ruled over them. Dettlaff's happiness was total, his life perfection. For the most part, Jenny's was too, but on cold clear nights, she would climb to high places and look out over the vast emptiness below her, wondering what was happening in the world beyond the wilderness. A part of her would always be drawn to civilization, to the free cities where people danced and sang, learned, and warred. After fifty years together, forty of those spent in the wild, Jenny yearned to return to the world of mortals.

Dettlaff found Jenny atop an ancient elven ruin, sitting beneath the stars, her mind far away. He sat down behind Jenny and wrapped her in his strong arms. She rested against his chest and breathed deep the scent of him, leather and pine needles.  
"Where are you, my love?" he asked.  
“Beneath the lights of Novigrad, people watching. Walking through the streets of Oxenfurt with the students of the Academy.”  
“Do you wish to return?”  
Jenny moved to sit in Dettlaff’s lap and gazed at his face. She loved him so and only wanted him.  
“Only if you go with me.”  
“We should go find Regis; it has been too long since last we saw him." 

Dettlaff and Jenny left the wilds and their tribe of lesser Vampires behind and ventured back into the civilized world. It was like they had never left it all behind; people were born, lived, and died. The cycle continued in an endless march. Wars started and ended, Kings and Emperors ruled with benevolence or iron fists. Jenny didn't know what she expected, but she didn't expect people to be still enthralled by the same petty gossip as fifty years ago. Still, she was not disappointed, a part of her loved the simplicity of it, she may be endless and mortal lives may be short, but they were still the same creatures overall, there was a permanence to human nature, and Jenny admired it.  
They moved in the social circles of the elite and poor alike, looking for news of Regis. After two years of searching, they found him in Vezima; he had opened a simple practice, healed the sick and dying, and commanded the respect of his neighbors.  
Dettlaff and Jenny were unexpected, but welcome guests. Regis joyfully welcomed them into his home, and they spent the long winter evening talking about the last forty years apart. Dettlaff spoke with great fondness of the tribe he and Jenny had gathered in the wilds, and though they had only been away two years, Jenny could hear the longing to return in his voice. 

Jenny lay awake in bed that night, Dettlaff snoring softly beside her. She was conflicted, and sleep would not come. Eventually, she threw off the blankets and wandered downstairs in search of a distraction. She found Regis in the sitting room, pouring over old manuscripts. Jenny sat across the table from him and helped herself to a cup of tea from the kettle.  
"Regis, I' am in need of your wisdom," she announced.  
He slowly moved the books and papers aside and looked intently at her with his dark eyes.  
“It’s Dettlaff, and his desire to remove himself from the world again, isn’t it?” he asked.  
"Yes, but I want to stay. I want to live in this world for a time, drink in the experiences it can offer me" Jenny exhaled her breath in frustration. "I do not want to be apart from him, but I cannot ask him to stay when he dislikes it so much."  
"You are still very young; perhaps time to yourself would do you some good," Regis suggested.  
Jenny laughed, "Regis, I' am one hundred and seventy-three; I' am hardly young."  
"Maybe to you, but to Dettlaff and I, you are young."  
Jenny remembered that Regis was almost six hundred and forty years old, Dettlaff only a few decades younger and felt anew the vast stretch of time before her. Jenny already felt like she had lived through so much, almost two hundred years of life was a very long time, how would it be in another four or five hundred years? Would her concerns of the moment be utterly irrelevant by then? In five hundred years, would she still be Dettlaff's lover? She hoped so, Jenny could survive many things, the changing of the world entirely, but to lose Dettlaff would be to lose her own life.  
“Alvaro had told me that I would come to think of time as my enemy, is that how you see it?” She asked Regis.  
“When I think of all my mortal friends who have died, yes. It is the immortal ones that make life worth living, and the desire to heal and learn. With unlimited time one finds unlimited hobbies.”  
Jenny returned to the room with no solutions. She woke Dettlaff with tender kisses, and they made love. Eventually, Jenny drifted to sleep in exhaustion, wrapped in his arms. When she woke with the sun, she knew she must send Dettlaff away, back to the tribe they had made.  
“Dettlaff?”  
“Mmm?” he mumbled sleepily.  
"I know you want to go home," she whispered, "I wish to stay for a time, but I will not ask you to."  
Dettlaff woke completely and pulled Jenny close, nuzzling into her neck and covering her in kisses until she giggled.  
“I will stay with you.”  
Jenny rolled on top of Dettlaff and took his face in her hands.  
“But you are not happy here, I know it. I will return to you, to the life we made there, I just need time.”  
Dettlaff caressed Jenny's face, drank in her beauty. He was torn, he never wanted to be apart from her, but he yearned to go back. He knew immortal lovers did not stay together always, had hoped they would be different, but it was in his nature to remain removed and in hers to reach out.  
"I would be enraged if you took another lover," he warned sternly.  
Jenny laughed and kissed him deeply.  
"I would be to," she said through her laughter.  
He tickled her sides, and they rolled in the bed together, laughing and wrestling, tangling the sheets and blankets about them. Dettlaff won, he lay atop Jenny and pinned her to the bed. His eyes were serious, and the playful mood was gone. Jenny leaned up and kissed him hard.  
"I will only ever love you, Dettlaff van der Eretein, my body, and soul are yours from now until the end of time," she declared.

Jenny and Dettlaff parted ways, him back to the tribe of Vampires and the wilds of the world and Jenny to Novigrad to the hustle and noise of the city. She kept the pearl safe around her neck still, if he ever needed to find her, he could. Jenny started working with the Doctors in Novigrad, honing her skills again, and learning new techniques. She spent a year creating a simple life of work in the days and people-watching in the many bars at night. Jenny kept herself at a distance from her coworkers; she enjoyed their company but did not foster friendships outside of work. Most of her free time was spent alone, and she preferred it that way.  
As the new year rang in, the atmosphere in the city grew with tension. The Church of Eternal Fire's power and reach had died down considerably under Empress Cirilla's rule. It even remained suppressed under the rule of her son Emperor Marcus, but Marcus's son Emhry was slowly losing grasp on the Empire. He was like his great grandfather in namesake alone, for he was a foolish and selfish ruler. Since his reign had begun, the Church of Eternal Fire had slowly been regaining power, and it was trying desperately to pull Novigrad back under its control.  
Jenny tried to avoid the political realms; she simply wanted to live and watch, but as the riots in the city grew, so did her anger at the Church. Burn victims had become a common thing, and Jenny spent hours treating them, many did not survive. In the end, it was the body of a small half-elf boy that had pushed her over the edge. They had brought him into the surgery, blackened beyond recognition, his parents had screamed and wailed when they were told he was gone. Jenny knew them both, and the small girl clutching at the mother's skirts. Her neighbors.  
The rage that filled Jenny drove her to seek out groups who were trying to bring down the Church. Within a month, Jenny had bribed and compelled her way into the leadership circles of the Anti Eternal Fire League. By the next month, she had done the same inside the Church of Eternal Fire as a spy.  
They did not accomplish much in the beginning, killing a few corrupt Church leaders, stealing shipments of gold. Mostly they were a nuisance to the Church, but as their numbers grew, they began planning to take it down from the inside. Jenny had learned of an upcoming Celebration of the Summer Solstice, Church leaders from around the country would travel to Novigrad for the ceremonies. It would all culminate into one big ceremony at the peak of the Solstice, all would be gathered around the flames on Temple Mount, and that was when the League would strike.  
Jenny used her connections inside the Church to place League members in critical places for the day of the ceremony. As plans finalized and pieces fell into place, Jenny's excitement grew; for the first time in centuries, she would be leaving a mark on the world. She felt as if she was finally part of the ebb and flow of life around her, and the feeling was intoxicating.  
The day of reckoning came, and all was going to plan, the final ceremony took place at sunset, all the leaders would gather together. Jenny joined the team of assassins and waited. They crowded together, a group of twenty, in the kitchens, waiting for the signal to attack. All were armed and armored, trained in combat. When the signal came, they moved silently up winding stairs and passages towards Temple Mount; they remained cloaked to look like acolytes and dispersed into the crowd, all moving closer to the dais where the leaders stood preaching of cleansing the world in holy fire.  
As one, they threw their cloaks aside, drew blades and sprang forwards. Jenny slashed her way threw the few guards; most had been replaced with members of the League, but some remain, not enough to matter. The crowd of worshippers erupted in screams as the blood ran down the dais. It was quick, but one escaped fleeing towards the temple, Jenny ran after him, her sword drenched in blood, her wrath fueling her. She would not be denied her revenge if even one escaped, she would not be satisfied.  
Jenny chased him through the halls of the temple, the fool had ripped a torch from its sconce and was setting the temple on fire as he ran. Jenny ran after him as the flames licked up the walls and grew. She finally cornered him. He stood robed in red and white, his eyes wide with panic.  
"All will burn and be reborn in the holy fire," he screamed at her "I will cleanse the city with holy fire."  
"You will die," Jenny said coldly.  
He flung the torch at Jenny, and she dodged it easily and marched towards him. She crossed the room in five quick steps and thrust her sword through his chest. She gripped his head and shoved the sword in until it reached the hilt, and watched the light go out in his watery blue eyes. With a deep sigh of relief, Jenny pulled the sword free and let his body fall to the floor. The adrenaline was still pumping through her veins, thrumming in her ears. Slowly the sounds of the fire broke through the adrenaline high, Jenny turned and looked around the room. It was consumed with flames, the exit blocked by a wall of fire. Jenny looked around, panic quickly replacing the adrenaline, there was no way out, the fire was moving towards the ceiling. The air was growing thin, and she began to cough, choking on smoke. The flames grew closer, and she could feel the heat of it searing her skin. Jenny crouched down under the smoke and clutched the pearl Dettlaff had given her closing her eyes as the wall of fire moved closer.  
"I'm sorry, Dettlaff," she whispered.  
“You should be.”  
Jenny opened her eyes and looked up at Dettlaff. He stood over her; anger etched on his face. She stood and hugged him tightly, eyes closed. Jenny could feel the flames around them and then the cold night air. He kept his arms locked around Jenny as he carried her to safety. Dettlaff set Jenny gently down but held his arms around her. She opened her eyes and looked up into his.  
“I leave you alone for a year, Jenneveive, and you almost get yourself kill?" his voice was angry, but his eyes were concerned.  
“They killed a child, Dettlaff. A little boy. I watched him play with his sister every day, he would pick me flowers and herbs, and they killed him for being half-elf. What was I supposed to do?"  
Dettlaff looked down into her pleading eyes, and his anger slipped away. Had he not once intervened because of a boy with an apple and a small act of kindness? He understood her wrath and desire for revenge. They watched the fires spread through Novigrad; bells rang throughout the city, people streamed from the gates carrying their worldly goods on their backs. Jenny was consumed with guilt; she had wanted to touch the world again, feel like she was a part of it, and instead, she had burnt an entire city to the ground and caused untold amounts of chaos.  
"Regis is going to be very irate with you if his house burns down," Dettlaff chuckled "He spent years curating his library."  
Dettlaff held her tight, and Jenny rested against him, she felt whole again with him. Jenny had her fill with the world; she wanted to find peace again, with Dettlaff and their Vampire companions.  
"Take me home, my love."


	2. Filling a Void

Jenny stood atop a cliff, below her, the wilds spread out in all their wondrous glory. Forest, rock, and valleys for miles, untouched by humanity, to the soaring peaks in the distance. She breathed deep and could smell the summer storm on the wind. It was building, and tonight it would split the sky with lightning, thunder would rumble, like the renting of the earth. Jenny could feel it in the wind, the slightest prickling on her skin. She had become in tune with nature like never before. Time had lost meaning out here again, but this time the desire to return to civilization did not come, Jenny had tried that and failed spectacularly. She had touched mortal lives but for the briefest of moments and accidentally burned Novigrad to the ground. Jenny no longer carried any guilt for it; guilt was a mortal feeling. Instead, she had taken it as a caution; immortals were not supposed to interfere in the affairs of men.  
How many years had it been since the fire? Since she had last seen civilization? Jenny did not know. Days, weeks, years? What did any of it matter when her number of them were unlimited? Her time with Dettlaff was all that mattered to her now. Once she had longed to be a part of the world but now she lived and breathed each moment with Dettlaff and their tribe of lesser Vampires.   
They hunted far and wide, roamed the open plains and the highest peaks. Freedom was theirs, and they relished in it. Jenny had gone truly wild; she ran barefoot through the forests, barely clothed, her silver hair weaved through with flowers. If one were to come across her, they would have thought her a forest nymph or maybe an ancient Goddess of tree and meadow.  
Everything about Jenny had changed over the last three centuries. Her once high cheekbones had grown more angular and sharp, her bright blue eyes had deepened, become inhuman. She could no longer pass as human, not without a glamour, something else she had learned to do over the centuries. Every year that passed turned her slowly more Fae and less human. She was still strikingly beautiful, in a feral kind of way.  
Jenny had trained in sword and bow for years, Dettlaff was a master of both despite him not needing either, and he had taught Jenny everything he knew. She was deadly accurate with a bow and fitting competition for any master swordsman. Her speed and strength had grown with age too, and she could flit around enemies at superhuman speeds, lift large boulders and fling them like pebbles.  
Jenny and Dettlaff's passion grew with her strength; the stronger she was, the less he held back, and together they would destroy entire rooms in the heat of their passion. They had grown into an impressive and dangerous pair, the Higher Vampire and the Daughter of Fae, leaders of over a hundred lesser Vampires. Their fierce passion also came out in their fights, screaming deathmatches of destruction. At times they would get so heated and angry they would not speak for months, but always they remained together, even if it was in angry silence.  
Regis came and went over the years. He liked to visit his two friends but still had the desire to be a part of the mortal world. Dettlaff and Jenny always welcomed his presence, and they ever begged him to stay when he left, wanting to keep the trio together forever. They understood Regis's desires, though, and let him go with the knowledge that he was always welcome among them.

Jenny felt the first few drops of rain touch her cheeks as the sun sunk behind the rim of the world. She tilted her head back and stretched out her arms, eyes closed. Jenny stood on the cliff as the wind and rain swirled around her, lightning lit up the night sky, and the thunder crashed, and she remained there, breathing in the spectacular power of it all.  
Dettlaff found her there; he did not interrupt her, just watched his strange wild woman, and loved her. Jenny's silver hair, drenched by the rain, whipped around her like the branches of a weeping willow, her arms spread wide, embracing the storm. Her long slender body was graceful and dangerous. Dettlaff loved her more than words could ever say, and he regretted deeply what he must do now. He turned away from her and became a black mist, forms of red swirling within, and left. He left the valley and their home, without a goodbye.  
Jenny sensed his presence and noticed it’s absence when he left. She did not turn from the storm and follow him, only assuming he had gone to hunt with their tribe.   
When she woke the next morning, in their bed made of fresh grass, she reached out for him with her mind and found nothing. Jenny ran the valley with her swift Fae powers and found no trace of Dettlaff. Next, she went to several of the bruxa, asked of his whereabouts, but none had seen him since that night. Worry began to eat at her, but she buried it down, sometimes he left the valley without a word but always before he had returned before dawn.   
Jenny waited for another day, impatience growing steadily and worry along with it, at the end of the second day she left in search of Dettlaff. He had left no trail, no sign of his passing and so she was forced to wander again into civilization. She cast a glamour upon herself and began searching villages and cities for the passing of a handsome, dark-haired man dressed in black. After a fortnight, she had still found no word of him and had to accept that he had not strayed into any human-occupied territory. Her next best hope was to find Regis, and so another search began. 

Finding Regis was harder than the last time, and her hunt led her far and wide, and in the end, it bore no fruit. For the first time in centuries, she was without Dettlaff, and Regis and Jenny felt lost. Jenny had dedicated her entire immortal life to the two of them and was without them. She had not felt this hollow since they died. The empty feeling ate at Jenny as she searched, growing with every passing month.  
Jenny searched for several years, growing hopeless and alone. A great need to fill the void grew too. She came to a decision one night while watching a mother round her children up for bed; a small babe clutched to her breast. The woman looked so complete, her eyes lighting up as she looked at her children. For the first time in her long life, Jenny felt the desire for a child. It would solve her loneliness; she would never be alone again if she had a child of her body to love and care for.   
Jenny's search for Dettlaff and Regis turned to a search for a Sorceress. Jenny found a willing ally in a young Sorceress named Hannah; she was a beautiful young woman with tanned skin and the biggest brown eyes Jenny had ever seen.

Jenny explained her want for a child, and Hannah understood, her own ability to bear children gone from her. Together they took over an abandoned tower and set to work. Jenny had spent five years looking for Dettlaff and Regis and had not found them. She dedicated another five to her research with Hannah. When Dettlaff's essence failed (taken from a lock of hair Jenny had kept with her all the years), they moved on to human, elven, dwarfish, doppler, and more. Jenny and Hannah ran through every option, and all failed.  
Finally, Hannah did a final test, one that Jenny had been afraid of. She was infertile; the mix between Fae and human had left her incapable of bearing children.  
"I'm so sorry," Hannah whispered as she lay a soft hand on Jenny's shoulder.  
Jenny took Hannah's hand in hers. "It is not your fault, my friend, no ones, just a matter of birth."  
“There are other ways, adoption?” Hannah suggested.  
"No, I wanted a child to fill the void, but I will not subject a child to me. If it was of me, had my powers and abilities it would be different, but a human or elven child, I feel it would be unfair."  
Hannah dropped Jenny’s hand and looked to the door, “Someone is coming!”  
Jenny stood and faced the door too, reached out with her mind to sense who it was, and almost fainted her when her mind touched a familiar one.  
“Dettlaff!” she exclaimed in a gasp.  
Hannah looked between the door and Jenny, worry building in her eyes. She had never come across a Higher Vampire before and did not know what to expect.  
The door opened, and Dettlaff stepped through it, dressed in black as always. His eyes were sunken with dark purplish circles under them. His skin hung on his body, bones standing out sharply. Dettlaff was a walking skeleton, hollow and haggard. Questions bubbled up in Jenny's mind, overwhelming her, but all she could get out was the question that had been haunting her for ten years.  
“Where the hell have you been?” she snapped.  
Dettlaff's eyes went from Jenny to Hannah and then about the room. It was evident in a glance what Jenny and Hannah had been up to with the potions, diagrams, and drawings littering the tower room.  
“What is this?” his voice was cold.  
Hannah looked between the two and could sense the storm brewing there, and she did not want to be in the middle of whatever was coming, she opened a portal on the opposite end of the room and ran through it.  
Dettlaff and Jenny stood alone in the room together, glaring dangerously at one another. All her sadness and sorrow over the last ten years, the aching emptiness left in the wake of his unexplained absence, boiled up and turned to a white-hot rage.  
“What is this?” he asked again, slowly and threateningly as he gestured at the room around them.  
“I want a child!”  
Jenny lifted her head in defiance and glared down her nose at him, daring him to challenge her in any way. She wanted to tear the tower down around them in her rage, smash him, and everything in it into the ground. Dettlaff took a step back, his breathing heavy. She could tell he was struggling with his own rage and wanted it to boil over. She picked a potion filled bottle up from the table and flung it at him; it shattered against his chest on impact, such was the force she had put into the throw. Dettlaff staggered back and looked at Jenny with wounded eyes. She grabbed another and flung it, he knocked it from the air with ease and took a step towards her. She tossed another, and this time he caught it and threw it against the wall, moving towards Jenny, his body shaking with anger. Jenny moved with her Fae speed, grabbed the entire table, and threw it at him. He barreled through it, the wood shattering into a million fragments. He grabbed Jenny and slammed her against the wall; she could hear the stone groan and crack under the force of the impact.   
Dettlaff stepped back and looked down at his hands in shock as if they had acted on their own desire. Jenny slammed both her hands into his chest while he was off guard, sending him staggering backward. Dettlaff's face changed and morphed into his monstrous form, he snarled in rage, his claws growing. Dettlaff tried to move away from Jenny, he turned to walk away, but she threw a book at the back of his head. It burst apart on impact, pages flying everywhere. He snarled again and launched at Jenny. She dodged quickly and threw another book, he sliced through it with his claws and came at her in a snarling fury. Jenny flung bottles, books, jugs, whatever she could get her hands on as Dettlaff pursued her around the tower room. Dettlaff backed her up against the wall, and Jenny stood waiting, she could see the fire in and rage in his eyes, but he did not touch her. He turned his wrath onto the tower room; he smashed the bookshelves and tables. He pulled down the walls with his bare hands and smashed the floors with his fists, roaring in rage the entire time.  
Jenny stood in the rubble when he had smashed the tower to the ground Dettlaff had left without a word. The fire had burned out of Jenny, and she felt sad now for having pushed him to such anger. Too late now, she could not take it back. 

“Jennevieve?” Regis slowly approached the ruined tower, his dark eyes concerned, “Did he hurt you?”  
Jenny spun on Regis; her rage returned at the sound of his voice.  
"Where the hell have you two been all these years?" She snarled, "I searched for you for years, Regis, and found not a single trace."  
“We had been summoned by the Elder in Toussaint.” Regis held out his hands in a gesture of peace, “We’ve been imprisoned in Tesham Mutna as punishment for when Dettlaff attacked Beauclair.”  
“That was centuries ago!”  
"The Elder can take centuries to make a decision; we were lucky he only sentenced us to ten years of torture. It could have been much worse.”  
Jenny rained in her anger and looked at Regis, really looked. He, too, had a skeletal appearance, his eyes hollow.  
“What did they do to you?” she asked.  
“The Elder kept us locked in Tesham Mutna, in a continues state of blood lust frenzy, a most horribly painful position to be in.”  
Guilt ate at Jenny; she had given up on Dettlaff entirely and sought a solution to her loneliness and all the while he was being tortured. She had driven him into a rage and let him leave. How could she have been so inconsiderate?  
"Why didn't he tell me? He left without word," Jenny buried her face in her hands.  
"He didn't want to worry you; it could have been a death sentence; we were lucky."  
"He should have told me!" Jenny screamed, picking up some of the broken stones and throwing them, she had no target, just needed to lash out.  
Regis came to Jenny and wrapped her in his arms; he let her cry on his shoulder and soothed her.  
"You are right; he should have told you."  
“Oh God’s, how am I going to make this right?” Jenny wailed.  
Regis held Jenny in her sadness, in the ruins of Dettlaff’s wrath. He had no answers for Jenny, only comfort. Dettlaff was in a rage and who knew how long it would last.


	3. Some Thing's Never Changed

The industrial age fascinated Jenny to no end; every time she blinked, a wonderous new invention had arrived. Some were merely mechanical, and some were powered by magic, all were equally interesting in Jenny's opinion.   
The year was 1722, and Jenny had just celebrated her four hundred and sixty-third birthday. She had lived through wars and famine, the rise and fall of kings, and the ending of empires. There had been a time when these changes had upset her, but now she lived in a world removed. Jenny walked through humanity but did not let it touch her; she had learned long ago to remain indifferent. The older she grew, the less time she spent with mortal being’s until her friends had all become immortals exclusively. The loss of one of her fellow immortals was enough to send Jenny into a deep depressive spiral if she became attached to mortals in such a way she would have ended her existence centuries ago.

Jenny had come to Novigrad, once a large city of thirty thousand, it had grown immensely in the last three hundred years and now spread deep into what had once been prime farmland. Nothing remained the same; the great fire of 1433 had gutted most of the old city, and in the process of rebuilding the city, Jenny had once lived in had become a completely different place.   
She walked now through the cobbled streets and marveled at the many wonders that had been brought by ship up the Pontar. Voices cried out in every direction, merchants selling wares, fish wives calling the catch of the day, and everywhere Jenny looked, humans swarmed.  
Jenny purchased a small music box powered by magic and a bottle of wine from Toussaint from the local merchants and continued on her path deep into the bustling city. She weaved through the crowds and finally turned into a small, quiet section of the city. The houses here were expensive; the community who lived in them valued wealth but above that, privacy. Jenny walked to the end of the lane and approached a large manor, beautifully carved and painted. The door was a bright red, and Jenny smiled fondly at it. Some thing's never changed, Regis’s preferred door color being one.

She knocked and waited when the door opened her face split into a glorious smile.  
"Regis, my darling," she declared loudly and wrapped her old friend in a tight hug.  
Regis laughed and hugged Jenny back.  
“You always arrive unannounced, but you are always the most welcome. Please come in.”  
He ushered her into the manor and led her through the marble halls to his private sitting room. It was an elegant room with lush red carpets on the floors, but all the available walls were lined with bookshelves that were practically bursting with books. Regis pulled a chair out and offered Jenny a seat by the small hearth. She took it gratefully.  
“I’ve brought a gift.”  
She handed the bottle of wine to Regis, and he smiled fondly down at the bottle.  
“Corvo Bianco bottled in 1670, a wonderful year and a fabulous vineyard.”   
Regis looked down at the bottle for a long while, his eyes glazed over with memory. Jenny did not interrupt, for she understood. Sometimes simple thing’s took one back to the past, to memories so old you thought they had been completely forgotten. Jenny let him live in those fond memories for a while. Finally, Regis poured the wine and offered Jenny a glass. They drank deeply of the rich red wine. Jenny could taste the summer sun of Toussaint and felt her own ancient memories stir, she pushed them aside and smiled at Regis.  
“Tell me, what news of the world?” he asked.  
Jenny waved a casual hand, "Oh, the same, as always. Threats of war, threats of peace, humanity never changes, but my God's do they make extraordinary wine."  
"You have come to see him? Haven't you?" Regis got directly to the point.  
Jenny eyed him over her wine glass. Sometimes Regis would talk of everything and nothing for hours, always with a slight air of pretention; other times, he would be direct; he was almost always direct when it came to her and Dettlaff. She loved him and hated him for it.  
“Will he see me?”  
Regis's sad black eyes were really all the answer she needed. He had not forgiven her yet, almost a hundred years, and the grudge remained. Dettlaff was the most wonderfully, stubborn creature. Sadly when Jenny was on the receiving end of that stubbornness, it wasn’t so wonderful.   
“He hasn’t raged in at least a decade” Regis tried to make it sound like a good thing. “And occasionally he will join me on excursions into the city. He especially enjoys the saunas.”  
“Has he spoken of me? At all?” she asked.  
Regis sighed heavily and shook his head.  
“Damn it, Regis! What do I have to do to earn forgiveness?”  
“Give it time, Jennevieve. How many times have you two fought? You have always been such a volatile couple.”  
Jenny threw back the rest of her wine in a single gulp and held her glass out for more. Regis refilled it, and she drank deeply again before speaking.  
“Regis, I have given him nothing but time. Our fights before were trivial compared to this. A year of silence here, the worst was two years, but this! It has been ninety-four years of silence, and I will not allow this to go on any longer."   
“You cannot force your presence on him, Jennevieve, it would be most calamitous," Regis warned.  
"Why?" Jenny raised her eyebrows, "Would he kill me? Because at this rate, death is preferable to this intolerable silence."  
“Don’t jest Jennevieve, death is never preferable.”  
“Say’s you, the Vampire who can take a break and come back, me? I’m stuck slogging through the centuries with no reprieve.”  
Regis looked affronted, and Jenny smirked.  
"Do not dare laugh at my many deaths; they were anything but pleasant. You speak as if regeneration is easy. I'll have you know it is not! Have you been ripped apart and melted? Blown into a million pieces?"  
Jenny leaned across the table and took Regis’s hand in her own, the smile gone from her face. Her large blue eyes were full of remembered sorrow.  
"I may not have been blown to a million pieces, but it sure felt like it," she whispered.  
Regis took Jenny's hand in both of his; the angry look fading from his face to be replaced with tenderness. They sat in silence for a long time, speaking with their eyes. After so many long years of friendship, they did not need words to express certain things. All the shared years of joy and suffering spread out behind them like a vast tapestry, and together they walked down memory lane, hand in hand.  
“I do not think he would kill you, perhaps harm you, we both know how he gets when he is in a rage, but no, I don’t think he would kill you. And if he harmed you, well, that would be several more centuries of silence, he would be consumed by guilt.”  
"This isn't fair," Jenny whined.  
"Fair? You brought this upon yourself," Regis chided.  
“I never intentionally hurt him; it was all a stupid mistake. A fleeting fancy."  
"Mistake or not, you broke his heart."  
"Let me at least try to repair the damage I have done," Jenny pleaded.  
Regis shuffled uncomfortably in his chair, trying not to look directly into Jenny's deep blue eyes. He knew the effect she could have. Her powers had never grown as strong as a pure-blooded Fae’s, but they were still hard to resist. Her power of compulsion over lesser being's had developed over the centuries until she could even sway the mind of a Higher Vampire, if only momentarily.  
"I won't leave until you tell me where Dettlaff is," Jenny threatened.  
"Well, it's a good thing I enjoy your company, stay for an eternity. It bothers me not. Shall I prepare you a room, or perhaps an entire wing?"

Jenny woke in the middle of the night. She kept her breathing even and eyes closed while she tried to discover what had woken her. Regis's guest room was still and dark; nothing moved, and yet there was something in the room with her. Jenny caught the scent of leather and pine trees, subtle but close.   
“I know you are awake.”  
Jenny’s eyes shot open, Dettlaff was beside her in the bed. He lay casually on his side, his dark head propped up on his hand. Jenny wondered how long he had lain there watching her sleep. She longed to touch him, kiss him but knew better. He hadn't attacked her, and he had sought her out, so maybe there was hope for them yet.   
"I've missed you," she whispered.  
"Ninety-four years, and all you have to say is I missed you?"  
His voice was calm and level, another good sign.  
“What would you have me say?” she asked.  
“An apology would be nice.”  
Jenny sat up in bed and hugged her knees. She gazed down at Dettlaff, his long body stretched down the bed, a dark shadow in the moonlight.  
“I don’t want to start a fight I won’t win. I was wrong for not waiting for you, but I will not apologize for trying. It was something I desperately wanted, something I will never have.”  
“Did your love for me die?” he asked quietly.  
“Never.”  
“But it wasn’t enough” there was no anger in his voice, only sadness.   
"I' am the one you left behind, ten years with no word, ten years Dettlaff. I tried to fill that void, and when you returned, instead of understanding, you gave me rage. All those long years ago Regis warned me, he told me you had no manners, and he was right. You do not walk away from someone you love without saying goodbye; you do not leave them for a decade and have the right to get angry when you return and find they tried to fill the void you left them in.”  
Jenny took a deep breath and tried to rain in her anger. She had not come here to fight with him, she wanted peace but five minutes alone with him, and she was already chewing his head off. The effect he had on her was always passionate, fire, and passion, always.  
"I cannot give you a child," he sighed softly "I cannot give you that, I' am not enough."  
“Damn it, Dettlaff” Jenny smacked her hands down on the bed “No one can give me a child, I’m like a fucking mule, I’m infertile.”  
The statement echoed through the room and rang in Jenny's ears. She had called it a fancy, a mistake, even a curiosity, but never had she spoken the truth aloud. She could not bear children of any race, ever. Jenny had lost Dettlaff when he found her pursuing her options with a Sorceress. The rage she had driven him into had been spectacular. She had thought he was enraged at the thought of her wanting a child; she had not considered that he had felt like he was not enough for her.   
“Why did you stay away from me for so long?” she asked.  
“I thought you could have a child. I stayed away so you could have what you wanted.”  
Dettlaff sat up on the bed and gently touched Jenny’s hair. Jenny turned her head until her cheek rested in the palm of his hand. She closed her eyes and cried silently. Every day they had spent apart was torture for her.  
“Stay with me?” she whispered.  
“I have failed you.”  
Dettlaff took Jenny's face in both his hands; his fingers wiping her tears away.  
"I thought to stay away was the right thing, and all this time, I have been making you suffer. I am a fool."  
Jenny laughed through her tears.  
"That is something I can agree with; you are a fool, Dettlaff van der Eretein but by all the God's, I love you."   
"I love you," his voice was raw with unshed tears.  
“I brought you a gift.”  
Jenny dug in the nightstand beside the bed and pulled out the magical music box. She wound it slowly, and the top popped open, out of it came a bittersweet melody and tiny white lights like fireflies hovered over the bed. Jenny set it in Dettlaff's hands and watched him admire it, his eyes alight with wonder. When the music stopped, the top closed, and the lights vanished.  
They kissed for the first time in forever and held tight to each other. They had spent lifetimes together, kissing and making love, but each time they kissed, Jenny felt the fire and passion of the first kiss they had shared under the ancient oak trees. Some thing's never changed, and her love for him was one.


End file.
